The present invention relates to a tank turret of the type including an armored turret housing having a moveable solid front armor, a gun barrel mounted in a cradle tube within the tank turret so as to be pivotal and displaceable in the longitudinal direction of the gun barrel during recoil, with the front armor being coupled with the gun barrel in order to increase the recoiling mass, and a damping element disposed between the front armor and the turret housing.
A tank turret of the above type is disclosed in German unexamined published patent application No. DE 3,930,256.A1, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,715. These references propose to reduce the recoil of the weapon in that functional masses existing in the tank turret, such as the forward armor, are included in the recoiling mass. With this measure, it becomes possible to either substantially shorten the recoil paths of the weapon when conventional ammunition is used or to employ higher powered ammunition with the same recoil paths. In addition, such tank turrets have a special protection against external influences. Projectiles penetrating the front armor, where their kinetic energy is consumed, produce less of a shock to the interior housing of the turret than, for example, the firing of a round. The reactive influence of active protective elements is also minimized.
The primary drawback of these prior art tank turrets is that the recoil energy is absorbed only by a horizontally displaceable mass or an approximately horizontally displaceable mass, even if the weapon is elevated, so that the vertical component of the recoil energy is not consumed and very high forces are introduced into the turret bearing. As a result of high mass accelerations, this may result in damaging influences on the aimed weapon and thus on the hit accuracy.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to further develop a tank turret of the above-mentioned type in such a way that the vertical energy component occurring when the weapon is elevated has practically no reactive effect on the weapon, at least until the projectile leaves the muzzle.